Winter Heats Up the Atlantic: As Seen By You

EUROPE and North Africa has been bathed in swell for the last few weeks. No two ways around it, there's been consecutive hours of clement weather and pumping waves from Iceland to West Africa.

There have of course been a few mega swells in the mix since 2013 came of age, but whilst that Atlantic winter speciality might be good for an XXL nomination and viral black blob swell charts, it generally means maxed-out beaches for the majority. What you and I, Mr Joe Average of the surfing world want (sorry Dorian) is overhead glassy walls of tubular joy, not 30ft Mully or 78ft Nazare.

The second good thing about this time of year is the light, suddenly the morning dawny and the skip-off-an-hour-early from work has opened up for those without trust funds, trades or student loans. We were in Morocco recently and people were calling "best winter ever" etc. An impossible claim to quantify - but ain't it been fun? Endless waves in the solid but approachable range.

If you haven't been scoring then you've missed out as this mashup from the user photos uploaded to the site should let you know.

We scored, big time. A group of six of us went to a secret spot on the north coast and boy was it good. Six mates surfing perfect 5 to 6 ft waves with lines as far as the eye could see and no one else out made this one of the most memorable surfs I've had in a long time. Good times.